044 Just Two Good Old Boys

Gene: 0:23

Howdy Ben, how are you today?

Ben: 0:25

Ah, I'm doing alright. Gene,

Gene: 0:26

yourself? Pretty good. A little confused by Zoom, but other than that,

Ben: 0:34

pretty good. Yeah, I wasn't gonna, I wasn't gonna rat you out, but okay.

Gene: 0:38

It's not my fault. I had apparently two different podcast recording sessions scheduled with you.

Ben: 0:44

Uh huh, huh. The old man can't figure out technology. Yeah,

Gene: 0:48

exactly. Oh, the damn technology, it's for the kids,

Ben: 0:53

you know. Yeah. And hootie rebels, apparently, you know, the hooties are attacking U. S. ships with and bases with drones and rockets.

Gene: 1:03

We don't really know that.

Ben: 1:04

Oh, oh, no, no, no. That's what the news media is telling us. Come on. It has to be true. This is nowhere near a wag the dog moment that could be going off for no reason at all. I mean, come on. Huh. Huh. No, I mean, the, the, the stories that are posting, I mean, we're recording this on 1022, and the stories that are posting as of midnight and really hitting out there are 100 percent bullshit things to draw us into war. Yeah. And obviously

Gene: 1:34

We have our second aircraft carrier group, apparently now, also.

Ben: 1:39

And don't forget the amphibious assault crafts that we have in the Marine Expeditionary Forces that we have, because U. S. amphibious assault crafts, while we don't classify them as aircraft carriers, every other country in the world would.

Gene: 1:53

That's true.

Ben: 1:55

You know, when you look at the aircraft carrier capacity of the U. S. Navy, you're really not looking at the true number.

Gene: 2:02

Yeah. Although, and that's all true what you just said however, I've been watching a lot more like Al Jazeera and other media sources for insights and something, I don't know if you had a chance to listen to. Another great podcast out there in the podcast verse called unrelenting or None,

Ben: 2:24

but yes. Yes, I have. Oh, have you now? Yes. And your thoughts on replacing me

Gene: 2:29

Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. Was that in there? Oh, I didn't see that.

Ben: 2:32

Uhhuh Uhhuh. I would like to state for the record, we've missed just as many because of you as we have because of me. Thank you. Mm-hmm.

Gene: 2:39

no, I don't remember those. But but we certainly missed some when Darren decided to take a day off for somebody's birthday that wasn't even his. Oh, I was talking about our podcast, but I know I'm talking, I'm saying all my goddamn hosts are missing. Shit. Yeah.

Ben: 2:53

Hey, by the way. Yeah. We're coming up on one

Gene: 2:56

year. I think you're right. Like one year officially under this brand and we did put a few under Sergei speaks before that. So we've been. Doing a recordings for well over a year, but we're coming up to a year of this podcast. So

Ben: 3:12

yeah, right. We should do something We should you know, like this show.

Gene: 3:16

I don't know So how an idea we should do the show

Ben: 3:20

Yeah, and by the way, we we also have a subscriber. So I wanted to thank them too. That's

Gene: 3:26

right Do you remember who it was? I can go

Ben: 3:29

to our top man. Look, okay

Gene: 3:31

do that cuz I yeah, I don't I don't recall. I remember that, that message coming in, so that was cool. But I couldn't remember the name. And I mean, that's, this is...

Ben: 3:44

Yeah, it's Timothy. Timothy is the one that is subtracted.

Gene: 3:48

Self admittedly, this is my area of weakness, is sort of, things that are not in the moment. Huh. The, yeah, I'm tracking and organizing things. It's not just names, it's just the, the, within a two hour span of that email coming in, I could have told you exactly who it was, and I would have be like, Hey, yeah, alright, we got a new subscriber. Honestly, when you brought up subscriber, I'd already forgotten that we had a subscriber. Right. So you reminded me, I was like, Oh, that's right, we didn't have a little notification coming in. Hopefully it'll be more than I You know, a month long subscriber, but we'll see, we'll see how it goes.

Ben: 4:24

Thank you, Timothy for, you know, we, we don't ask for donations and we haven't really done any sort of push, but the few people who have donated to us, it, it's just a nice thank you to us and a reminder that we're doing something that at least somebody

Gene: 4:37

values. Of the nations that we don't ask for I've been after a year, I finally am testing and it's, it's not fully functional, but I'm testing the the integration with donating out of podcast apps for this podcast. Yeah, so you're gonna

Ben: 4:55

screw me like Darren was screwing you. Is that what

Gene: 4:57

you're saying? I'm gonna attempt to do that just to get my money back to Darren stole. I'm gonna try and do that from you. So I would ask for anyone that's using a podcasting 2. 0 do a test donation. And what I mean by test is don't send anything that's, that you think is worth anything real. And, and by the way, everybody overestimates how much the, sATs are worth because people think they're making a huge donation and it's$2 and 10 cents. But do something small just to see if it's coming in correctly.'cause after this debacle with Darren stealing my money, I'm not convinced this works as intended. But if, if you, somebody wants to do like a 123 SATs, like a 1, 2, 3 or a three through three or something, you're basically sending a few cents. But that will help me determine whether everything is set up properly or not. And whether or not money is coming in and whether or not the splits are being done correctly. Yeah.

Ben: 5:54

And by the way, I need to change my GitLB. Oh yeah. At some point. Okay. You know, when the the address,

Gene: 6:01

I thought Blue Dumb Ass was a perfectly fine name for you on the,

Ben: 6:04

it doesn't say dumb ass, it says like farrier or something that they Autogenerated yeah. It's Hmm. One minute change that Blue fairy dumb ass. Yes. That's, and, and the problem is, you know, a, people don't keep track of what a Bitcoin is worth, and then B mm-hmm. A satoshi is a hundred millionth of a Bitcoin. Mm-hmm.

Gene: 6:22

Yeah, it's, it's a very, very small. Number and back when Bitcoin was at 55, 000 and looking like it's going to break 100, 000. You know, Satoshi was definitely a necessary currency when Bitcoin's barely pulling up to 20, 000. Although I think it's like 28, 000 right now, but it's been hovering a little over 20, 000 for over a year. It's, it basically means your Satoshis are worth about a quarter of what they were when Bitcoin was.

Ben: 6:54

Yeah, when everybody bought in.

Gene: 6:56

Yeah, when most people bought in, exactly. A little bit deviant. But I've never taken any Bitcoin money out. Everything that's in Bitcoin, I always just leave it. Because, you know, first of all, it's kind of play money because it's so tiny. But secondly, it's I was buying when it was at 50, 000 so there's obviously no way in hell I'm going to sell anything less than that.

Ben: 7:20

I mean, I, I, I still don't view Bitcoin as a, and people are going to get mad at me, but I've never looked at Bitcoin as a store of value. It's nothing more than a fiat currency. And I think where it really comes in handy is as a medium of exchange. The worst part about it as a medium of exchange is that the price is too variable. And really lightning solves a lot of the problems with it being used as a medium of exchange. So I, I, I was early on Bitcoin when the paper first came out. And I remember Steve Gibson on security now talked about it and did some mining early on. Right around that same time I was setting up a minor and doing it. Mm-hmm. and I had some Bitcoin and when it hit a thousand dollars coin, I sold it because I was like, shit. Yeah.

Gene: 8:11

You were one of the very few.'cause most people I should have held out my experience, which is I was very early on it. I set up a minor and I did mining mm-hmm. And after a month I got three and a half Bitcoin and I, and I thought about these things are worth, like under a buck. And my electrical bill increased about four bucks. And I was like this is bullshit. So I'm just, all I'm doing is paying the electrical company for a stupid experiment. And that was that. So I had three and a half or four, I don't remember what it was. But it was under five bitcoin, for sure. And nothing ever happened to them. They were in a computer who, yeah, I threw away. Or who? Which I threw away. Over a decade ago and it wasn't until Bitcoin hit like a thousand that I thought, Oh shit, should have taken the hard disk out.

Ben: 9:04

Yeah. So I, any, any computer I'm getting rid of one, I pull the hard drive to, I eventually clone that drive to storage that I have that's online. And then I destroy the drive before getting rid of it. So put a drill bit through it,

Gene: 9:20

destroy it, which is a good practice. I just don't really have much to worry about on those things. So I

Ben: 9:28

have drive erasers and everything else here, but yeah,

Gene: 9:31

you have the gauzers,

Ben: 9:33

I don't have D gauzers, but I have some, some tools. Speaking

Gene: 9:38

of tools. Before we do I was just going to make you don't want to talk about yourself. No, no, no. I was just going to mention that he, that you said that it's still a currency. I don't know if you saw, but bricks just. Release their new currency. Yeah. What's it backed by? Which, which is what's backed by gold and it is on a blockchain and it is not the, the currency of any of the nations. It is effectively a new blockchain currency.

Ben: 10:11

I mean, we're going to have to, we're going to have to see what it's actually backed by and if they actually have the gold to back it and what

Gene: 10:18

they do. You can't hold it. It is, it is meant for millisecond transactions. Okay. It's not a store of value. It is a transaction mechanism for all the BRIC countries that effectively replaces

Ben: 10:32

SWIFT. Yeah, so why not just use

Gene: 10:34

Bitcoin? Because that's an evil Western invention clearly.

Ben: 10:38

All that or it's you know Doesn't have the right back doors Which there was news about that recently too,

Gene: 10:46

but either way it's the the main feature of Bitcoin isn't Bitcoin It is the blockchain. Oh, absolutely. And so this is what, what is getting utilized. Now, if, if that currency ever becomes something that you can hold, that'll be interesting because that'll give me something to exchange my rubles into. Until that day, it's just, you know, it's a thing.

Ben: 11:11

Yeah. And, you know, Bitcoin and, you know, currencies of exchange are people, you know, people overestimated the anonymity of Bitcoin by a lot. Sure. It can be pseudo anonymous if you have. It randomly there, but how did you get it randomly there? And have you ever tied anything to it? And once you do, it's tied to you and it's a perfect ledger. Yeah. You know, banking records are only good for so many years. The, the odds of someone keeping good records and, or record keeping mistakes are far more likely in dollar transactions than they are Bitcoin. So for sure. Yeah, but yeah, I mean, you can definitely obfuscate what's going on by going through layers and things like that and multiple hops. Sure and you can do microtransactions across a lot of stuff to make it really complex to for an investigator or a jury to understand what's going on. Sure, but the idea of anonymity? Nope. Sorry. Yeah, that's gone. So anyway, so yeah Before we get too far into it, you had mentioned some of the stuff I'm dealing with for work on unrelenting and I figured I'd give everybody a rundown now. Yeah, we've been doing this big proposal and getting that out. And then I am giving not one, but two speeches next week at a. Security conference and yeah, one of them was pretty last minute because someone was supposed to do one and they backed out and turns out they hadn't done a lot of work on a presentation. So I had to do lots and lots of stuff last minute. And luckily, the security conference, they are gracious enough to accept slides well past the deadline.

Gene: 12:59

They're kind of Have to, unless they wanna cancel that

13:02

speaking

Ben: 13:02

song. Exactly. That's kind of the way I approached it. You know, you can either have a blank spot or you can let me update this.

Gene: 13:09

So yeah. So fun time for you. And are you gonna be gone for an extended period of time, or just a couple days or what?

Ben: 13:16

I fly out at 5:00 AM and I will not be back till Friday, oh, so the whole week. Okay. Yep. At the whole week at the very minimum yeah. Mm-hmm. got it.

Gene: 13:27

Yep. Yeah.

Ben: 13:28

Yeah. Enjoy as much as you can. And I've decided to fly with a firearm for the first time.

Gene: 13:35

Oh, you did? Okay, interesting. Yeah, yeah. It's worthwhile whatever hassle ends up...

Ben: 13:42

So I'm going to take my carry gun Georgia laws are such that it's going to be easy for that to work. My hesitation was okay. What about TSA? What about the, you know, airlines and everything else? And I've been doing a lot of research on this and what it comes down to. And I sent you actually a guy last night that you know, deviant from DEF CON and so on. He, he's done a lot of, I'm sorry. Yeah, so I've known him from the lockpicking community for forever. I didn't realize he was such a firearm enthusiast, but yeah, he is. Same

Gene: 14:15

here. I first met him, I think in 2008.

Ben: 14:18

Anyway, but he was talking publicly on one of his YouTube channels about some issues he's had with TSA and everything else I sent you, but realistically, what it comes down to is I'm, I'm going to use TSA approved locks for now, because the gun I'm carrying, I know the value of and everything else, and it is what it is. And I've checked with United's baggage policy. And they actually cover the contents of your suitcase, and there is no firearm exclusion. And they do up to 1, 500, no questions asked, on a bag. Anything over that, then you have to prove and so on, which will be trivial for me, because I'm going to be documenting the hell out of this. Yeah. And yeah. Good. Good. So it may be I, I'm actually gonna do this as a test run and, you know, given the book series we've been reading, which you've kind of apparently dived really deep into, you're

Gene: 15:10

responsible for such a lot of my time being spent. It's a time.

Ben: 15:14

So you got sucked in. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Gene: 15:17

It's a good book. Anyway, he, he does end them properly, which is in the middle of a story. Yes. So you have to read the next one. You're like,

Ben: 15:29

anyway, so you're on what book five now, so book one, you kind of went a little slow book two, you started picking up the pace three and four were like a couple of days, dude. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, no, it's a good series. But anyway this book series has really had me thinking, especially with as much as I travel. What, what if shit hits the fan while I'm, while I'm gone, what am I going to do now? I, in my vehicle, I keep gear, I, you know, have get home gear like that, but I fly a lot. So what am I going to do? And I think where I'm getting to is this is going to be a test run for me to accept checking bags, which normally I'm a carry on travel, right? Yep. Yep. But I'm going to accept checking bags and I'm going to take a little minimum get home gear when I'm flying in the States. Yeah. Now, international, I'm fucked anyway what difference does it make, but, you know, at least here in the States. Yeah, internationally. I can, if I'm in the contiguous United States, I can walk home.

Gene: 16:29

There you go. That, that would be a, something nobody ever would do, but, you could be the first to

Ben: 16:34

walk home. It would suck, but yeah, you know, better establish a new life somewhere else.

Gene: 16:40

Here's my recommendation is, if something hits the fan, go steal a bicycle. Oh,

Ben: 16:46

not just the bicycle, but yes. Steal, steal all the things. Steal

Gene: 16:50

all the things, yes. I guess having a gun would help in that scenario. Exactly. Yeah, that's, I've heard this before from people, that obviously it's a joke, but You don't need to hoard anything. You just need to have a map of where the Mormons live.

Ben: 17:05

There is some truth to

Gene: 17:06

that. But the Mormons hoard guns too. Yeah, exactly.

Ben: 17:10

You know, I don't know if I ever told you this, but my Boy Scout troop was hosted at a LDS church. Oh really? Yeah, so yeah, it was a whole thing. Which I don't know, it'd be interesting to find out what the Mormons are doing now that scouting has changed the way it is. You mean, to being gay? To being unisex and doing bank sales like like Girl Scouts. Which is just nah,

Gene: 17:36

fuck. I would say that's, you have your answer right there.

Ben: 17:40

Right, but I'm wondering what the Mormons have done. Because they were big Boy Scout participants and backers and so on. Yeah. It'd be interesting to find

Gene: 17:48

out. They're probably doing their own thing. I don't, I... You know, it's fun to make fun of the whole Mormon religion, because it's so absurd.

Ben: 17:54

Dum dum dum

Gene: 17:55

dum dum. But, I will say, as far as people's personalities and stuff, I've really had nothing but great you know, very good relationships with Mormons.

Ben: 18:07

I don't disagree, some of my best friends are

Gene: 18:09

Mormon. Yeah, I wouldn't go that far, but I would definitely say that they're, they're happily, they're just kind of happy go lucky type folks. Who don't drink caffeine and don't swear. And it's Oh, they drink caffeine. This is well, they're not real Mormons then. This is a There are a lot of Jack Mormons, dude. There's what?

Ben: 18:29

A lot of Jack Mormons.

Gene: 18:31

Okay. The ones I've met in fact, I corrupted one, I guess, cause I, This is a dude that's older than me, that I'd met up with JUSTIN Hey, hey, hey.

Ben: 18:41

I don't want to hear about you, what goes on between you and some dude that you're corrupting. Okay? LIAM Oh

Gene: 18:46

boy, did I corrupt him. So we met at an event, and then I happened to be traveling in the city he lives in, and we got together for lunch, and I had you know, I drink it right now. I drink it non stop. Can't take for granted that iced tea is just sort of, better water. And And so I ordered the iced tea and then, He said, you know, I'll Yeah, I'll have the same. I didn't think twice of it. And then, They brought the iced tea and he tried it, And he seemed like he was tasting it. I was like, oh, do you not like their iced tea? And he says I've never had iced tea before so this, my first time trying it, it's it's an interesting taste. I was like, you've never had iced tea? And then he said, yeah, no, I don't, I never drank coffee or tea. Or soft drinks. And he was probably in his 60s.

Ben: 19:40

They drink soft drinks. Then, you know.

Gene: 19:43

This guy didn't. When he was in his 60s. Yeah. They were, they were pretty high up in the LDS. Yeah.

Ben: 19:49

So he had his magic underwear.

Gene: 19:50

Got it. He did. Absolutely. The reason that he was doing this now. People think that's a joke, but it's

Ben: 19:55

really not. That's

Gene: 19:57

what makes it so funny. Yeah. I think it's the term magic that. People wouldn't actually utilize in the in

Ben: 20:03

the alias itself. Have you seen the Mormon, Mormon girls porn? I have. Yeah. That's just so wrong at so many levels.

Gene: 20:13

Yeah. Sure. I mean, I wouldn't say that's the worst porn I've seen.

Ben: 20:18

I don't wanna know, Gene. No,

Gene: 20:19

you don't. Don't wanna know. No, believe me, you really don't. But... The FBI might. I don't. No, no, no. I don't know. I don't. Nobody, nobody but the there are definitely people that, that you know, followed the all the tenets to the letter, as there are in the Muslim faith, as there are in the Jewish faith. I don't think it's a majority of any of these faiths, people follow everything to the letter, but certainly there are some folks on each religion that do. Few and

Ben: 20:54

far between.

Gene: 20:56

Yep, I watched a funny YouTube video speaking of religion, we'll check off this bingo card what do they call those? It's a bingo card slot, it's not a slot, it's a square. Cause I, I always kind of joke on... On my other podcast that every show you have a bingo, bingo card of the topics often mentioned and we'll see how many of those we ended up mentioning. I think it's time we start doing that on this one as well, because there's definitely a standard set of topics that we ended up talking to. Your travel is one of those. That's a bingo card thing for sure. And And of course, I just forgot what the hell I was talking about, so

Ben: 21:34

there we go. I don't know, but can you, is my dog making it through the noise gate? No, your dog's

Gene: 21:38

fine. Good.

Ben: 21:39

He's apparently responding to a siren or something. Hmm.

Gene: 21:44

Hmm. Alright, so what are we talking

Ben: 21:48

about? You were talking about a bingo card for this

Gene: 21:52

show. I know, but before that, because I forgot what the hell I was trying to say. Hmm. Okay whatever. I guess we'll move on. You think

Ben: 22:00

I was listening to you,

Gene: 22:01

please? No, obviously not. You were listening to your dog.

Ben: 22:04

The NSA did put out a tool set recently that I'm going to have to play with at some point we'll say it's their intrusion it's their analytics. Which is interesting analytics for intrusion detection basically, I, I don't know what rule set they're done in, but I'm sure it's like snort or snorby or some, some common engine or I'll send you the, but so anyway Middle East is on fire.

Gene: 22:34

Oh yeah, yeah, what's going on there?

Ben: 22:37

It looks like the beginnings of World War III, I don't know, you know? Hmm. Although, a lot of people say it's not going to go beyond this because of XYZ limitations. Here's the trouble. And I think they're, they're

Gene: 22:48

nuts. Here's the problem, is that your favorite YouTuber, Put out a video. You know who I'm referring to.

Ben: 22:56

I, I know who you're referring to. I don't know that I would agree that's my favorite YouTuber, but go on.

Gene: 23:00

I know, but that's, that's the name of that particular YouTuber, is that... He's, but I'm, I'm trying to remember what the hell his name is. Zehan. Zehan. That's right. Peter Zehan. Who is Ben's favorite YouTuber, just so everybody knows. He put out a video yesterday, I think, where he predicted that everybody's overblowing the whole Israeli thing. Nothing will happen because no country is stupid enough to get involved in a war in the Middle East with the United States. He doesn't think anything will happen from Iran, he's talked about how weak all the other countries that surround Israel are. Egypt is frankly wanting to move itself a couple of countries over further west, just to get away from the whole situation. He thinks that this is just being purely prolonged by the media, that there's, there's nothing there. Nothing to see. It's, it's all done deal. And, of course, I had to post a comment in his comment section and say this is really bad when the guy that's been more wrong than right predicts that nothing is going to happen in the Middle East. I think we all know what's going to happen in the Middle East. Did you get a response? I haven't checked yet. I just did that like this morning, but it was Peter Zahon is one of those guys that has worked mainly for the U S government for the majority of his life.

Ben: 24:30

Not if you read his bio, I mean, his bio says nothing about U. S. government service. Gene, come on.

Gene: 24:36

Huh. No, he has worked in a consultant capacity for the U. S. government for the majority of his life. He started off working directly for the U. S. government when they sent him to Australia. Back when he got brought into the CIA, but after that, he's been working in the private sector for a company that has one customer, that being the U. S. government. Wait, Ben, doesn't your company just have one customer called the U. S. government? No, we

Ben: 25:05

actually have a lot of customers, including commercial, which is the entire side that I'm on. Thank you. Nice.

Gene: 25:10

Okay. Just checking. Get, get a little bit of a glowy feeling and going on here anyway. So Peter Zahan is really good. Yeah, I'm like, I'm not kidding. I'm giving him full credit at at storytelling he's in

Ben: 25:24

rationalization. He comes up with a very good set of rationale.

Gene: 25:28

He's very good. If you want somebody to do a planning scenario of what if and you don't want it to be accurate, you want it to sound realistic like this could happen. He is a guy that can make that happen. He's very good at that. He's good at coming up with convincing sounding arguments for Regardless of what he actually believes for any site. And I that's a genuine skill. So I fully give him props on that. However, unfortunately, if you look at his own YouTube channel, which I guarantee you, somebody's footing the bill for him doing all those videos. He's not doing him out of the goodness of his heart. But if you look at that channel, I think it's a

Ben: 26:07

significant revenue stream for

Gene: 26:09

him. Oh, it is. I just don't think the revenue is coming from YouTube. That's all. He's not, he doesn't have enough subs to really make that be a significant portion. YouTube pays a lot less than people think it does. It's eight cents per, per thousand views. You know, it's, it's a small number, but either way if you'll start writing down his predictions from five years ago and what he's saying is happening. So go to pre COVID, start looking at what he was talking about then during COVID. You'll find that over 50 percent of the time, and it's not a huge number over 50, but it's a little over 50. He will be proven to be wrong by history over and over and over and over or he is proven, maybe I should say wrong by history. So his predictions don't come true now. If you, if you want to be looking at it like a lawyer, very technically, there's always some weasel way to get out of saying he said that it's highly likely, but he didn't say it was guaranteed, you know, things like that. But in general, eventually you'll be convinced that this is not a guy to take advice from in terms of what's actually going to happen in the future. I think he makes

Ben: 27:28

some very good scenarios. I think he's great source material for lots of things. I don't know that I would trust conclusions as a default, but I think he's not as wrong often as you would sit there and say. I think he's been right, especially on his, his backward looking historical analysis. I find that's very different. It's not predictive. I understand. But. You and I can use that to draw our own conclusions. Number one. Sure. And then number two some of his talking points and predictive items I wouldn't take wholesale, but I would let feed lots of things.

Gene: 28:06

And again, he is a good storyteller. He's enjoyable to listen to. He's got a very kind of. Non threatening, but information full type

Ben: 28:17

Modality. Straight acting gay guy, by the way.

Gene: 28:20

He is a straight acting gay guy, although if you know that he's gay, then you start noticing more of the little, what do we call those things? Just sort of... Effeminate natures. Effeminates, yes, effeminate cues. You know, the, the curved pinky thing

Ben: 28:35

or the limp wrist. Yeah.

Gene: 28:36

Or anything British basically. Yeah, exactly. But, or the things he gets a little too excited about when he talks to somebody during an interview. But he is a you know, I, I'm not like, I would totally have drinks with him. I'm not, I don't think he's a bad dude. I don't think he's evil. I think he's. Probably doing what he's paid to do and doing a decent enough job of it. They keep paying them. But I also think that the, there are some people I've met that will send me like one of his videos as conclusive proof of something going to happen in the future. Like China and I'm like, dude, have you have you gone through his past catalog of predictions yet? Because you should before you send

Ben: 29:22

me a video Again, I don't think his predictions are You know, I know but I don't think his predictions are as off as you are making it quite sound like

Gene: 29:33

He's predictions. Here's the key point. He's predictions miraculously somehow always coincide With the official U. S. policy position. Shocker. Shocker. It's amazing how when somebody predicts the future based on all kinds of data points, that they always seem to come up with the same conclusion that the U. S. government officially tells. Mm hmm. That's all you gotta know. Why Zeon? Oh, cause he was Middle East stuff. Middle East, cause he said that this is as hot as it's gonna get. It's only gonna cool down. Which, I don't agree. Yeah. And I just, I think there are too many, there are too many people that make the mistake of assuming that all other people think rationally and have the same motives as standard American. Mm hmm. And I, by standard American, I don't mean like the super lefties or the super righties or, you know, just like the Joe Average America. Which is just false blatantly. Like the standard American viewpoint on most things compared to the entirety of the rest of the world is not in the middle. Like the standard American is not the standard earther. The standard earthers position is going to be quite different than the standard American position. And and that includes decision making based upon rational thought versus decision making based upon emotional response. And the one thing that all the Middle Eastern countries, peoples have in common, including Israel, is a much stronger emotional response. Offending somebody may, in fact, be a greater thing against them than doing physical harm to them. Because when you offend somebody, you don't just offend the person, you offend the name, you offend all his relatives. You have found an extended group of

Ben: 31:44

people. Yeah. But, okay, so let's talk military projection power, because I think that our carrier strike groups are there to basically be targets and Yeah. Drawn out, draw out yeah. An attack. Mm-hmm. I think that's what we want is here. Go on. Gone. Mm-hmm. do it. Do it. Mm-hmm. do it. Problem with that is I don't think the ruling classes in the Middle East are completed yet, and not only that, I don't think that there's even Iran I, I have a A guy I know that's Iranian. He's, he's a researcher at A& M and he you know, he, he came over from Iran and, you know, he, he doesn't think they have the the impetus for war because he doesn't think they can handle the, what the domestic turmoil would be if they went to war. He, he thinks that they're barely hanging on as is. Now, how good of a judgment call is that? I don't know. What I will say though is, I don't s I see us doing a false flag to draw us into war before I actually see Iran or somebody pulling the trigger and attacking a U. S. carrier group because they know what that would mean.

Gene: 32:57

And a lot of people in this country don't even know how big Iran is.

Ben: 33:01

Yeah and, and a lot of people don't understand that there's a difference between Iran and, you know, Saudi Arabia. One's Persian, one's Arab. These two do not mix very well.

Gene: 33:12

They dislike each other. A lot. Yes. And

Ben: 33:16

the word hate would come in.

Gene: 33:19

And I think it's something that's quite true that I heard recently is saying that and it's bi directional that if one of those two countries got wiped off the face of the earth, the other Muslim country Would be just fine with it.

Ben: 33:34

The other Muslim country would likely be complicit

Gene: 33:37

in it. Yeah, yeah. So there is no unity in Islam. There's certainly, versus the West there is, but there is plenty of denominationalism and cultural issues. There as well. Same thing actually goes for the the Iran and which is supposed to be the biggest backer of Hamas and Hamas the, and this, I do believe this is true that Iran, if Hamas disappeared tomorrow. Iran could leverage that, but they're not going to be genuinely upset. Because Hamas are not well, Hamas is Arab. They're they're not Persian. They're also.

Ben: 34:33

Yeah, there's lots of issues here, and one thing we need to recognize, and I think you did a good job on ran our what was that other show? Unreleased. Unreleased. You know, you did a good job going through the history of, you know, like Gaza and everything else and pointing out, you know, hey, this was Egyptian things like that. Mm hmm. All of that said.

Gene: 34:58

Oh, I also remembered the, the word, because I kept saying. What, what are the Palestinian, was that

Ben: 35:03

the way I was sitting there going the Romans called it Judea, but okay. Where are you going with this? No

Gene: 35:07

Philistines. That, that was the the Romans.

Ben: 35:11

I think those are not the same thing, but okay.

Gene: 35:14

What, what do you mean they're not the same thing?

Ben: 35:17

Philistines and Palestine first of all, Palestine and Palestinians and everything else is, it's the whole, whole different thing.

Gene: 35:25

That, the word Palestinian and Palestine did not exist 2000 years ago. Okay. The, what did exist is the Philistines, which were a group of settlers to that region, to where Jerusalem is that were coming across the Mediterranean. And this is something that I, I saw in the video where they pulled it out of a history book talking about how post the destruction of Jerusalem, the Romans started calling that area, instead of calling it Judea, started calling it Philistinia.

Ben: 36:01

Anyway where was I going with this before I was so interrupted? Yeah, so Gaza used to be part of Egypt, and then, you know, the Six Days War happened, things like that. But regardless, the entire thing is, you had this area of Palestine that was under British control, that the British said, hey, you know what, whether we like it or not, we're going to A lot of people agreed with it. We're going to create a Zionist state. And when I say Zionist, I literally mean a state of Israel, a creation of a Jewish state. That's what Zionism is. So if someone asked me, am I an anti Zionist? I don't know that I'm anti Zionist, I'm just definitely not pro. I, I don't know that the Jewish people need their own state, and if they do, then they should go and do it. I don't think there should be an international creation of it. That's my view,

Gene: 36:52

yeah, but I, I mean, you could make the argument that the Jews skill set involves in manipulating the international community to doing their bidding.

Ben: 37:04

Yeah, sure. Whatever. You can make that argument. Don't care. Not going to touch that one with a 10 foot pole. The point is, the, the... The government that was in control of this land was Great Britain. Great Britain decided to give that land up to create a Jewish state. They did that. They did that of their own free will and volition. Therefore, Israel has a right to exist. That's just the way it was. It's the way it is. It shall be now. Can they hold on to that territory? And what means will they use to hold on to it? That remains to be seen. The two state solution has been rejected over and over again. We see the chance of from the river to the sea and all that, all that's going to do is end in bloodshed. The real question is, what really is acceptable, what isn't acceptable, and can we find a peaceful solution, and I don't think we can. Yeah, I don't,

Gene: 38:06

I don't think that there's a peaceful solution, and as I think you and many other people have been saying, there should be no expectation by anybody, regardless of side. That you can pull off a massive attack and immediately call for a ceasefire. Ceasefire, ceasefire, ceasefire. No, that's not how this

Ben: 38:31

shit works. Let me punch you and then go time out.

Gene: 38:33

Yeah, it's okay, okay, no, we're cool, we're cool, we're cool. Okay, let me punch you. And then a few years later, punch again, and then, no, and it's not like a normal punch either. This is, this is like a what do you call those, sucker punch. Yeah, sucker punch, exactly. Exactly. So I think this is again this is where the marketing machine working for a variety of Hamas and I would probably throw the other groups in there as well. What's the other one in the North side? Hezbollah, Hezbollah. Yeah. Like their PR machines are

Ben: 39:09

very, the way they responded to the hospital stuff was fantastic. It was

Gene: 39:14

great. Like they're, they're clearly run by professionals and I don't know if they're even run out of the middle East. They could be run out of London for all I know. And given them the amount of current fairly violent attacks going on in the uk. They probably are run out of London. This, there's a, this, this is the thing that could be interesting is right now weak Europe is weakened in general because of their stupidity with nato. Okay. And I think that you don't think they're weakened. So I think that there could here's this is not a prediction. I'm not going to be doing the same thing Peter is, but I will say that there's certainly a possibility that the European conflicts with its local imported populations Who could be citizens at this point could become bigger than what's happening in Israel. Yeah, we could, we could see more Europeans dying in the next several months than people died in Israel. And I mean, on both sides, I don't mean it will have zero deaths on the the immigrants or refugee side. And we'll have all the deaths on the, the the French and the UK side. I'm not saying that, but we could see a total that's over 2000 people dead the next couple of months in Europe because of clashes, violent clashes. Between supporters of the end of Israel, the pro Palestinian side, and the the, it's not even going to be against the people that are pro Israel, it's going to be against the police for the most part. Until some European country comes out officially anti Israel. Then until that happens, then that country's police force is going to take the brunt of the protests.

Ben: 41:07

Yeah. And this is one thing I will say that I think Zehan is correct. And I will agree with his prediction on is we are looking at the ends of the Bretton woods era. We're seeing the U S pull back. And as the U S pulls back off the world stage, because that's what, what is going to happen. It's going to be a tumultuous time for a bit. We'll see you know, we'll see, you know, the globalists or Biden sending two aircraft carriers over there is kind of a last ditch. Can we get America into one more war sort of thing?

Gene: 41:45

Yeah. The problem with trying to project strength is at some point you have to use strength. Or people will stop believing you.

Ben: 41:54

By the way Bud's Gun Shop has a hell of a deal on a Sig P320 M17. Oh yeah? What kind of deal? 571.

Gene: 42:04

I wish they would pay us for these ads, but okay, sure, tell us anyway. 571, is that a pretty good price? What'd you pay for yours?

Ben: 42:11

A lot more than that a few years ago. Did you really? Yeah. Okay. When I say a lot more, a couple hundred bucks.

Gene: 42:16

A couple hundred? Yeah. You did? So you paid seven hundred

Ben: 42:18

for it? Yeah, the MSRP was like seven something when they first came out. And you

Gene: 42:22

paid MSRP?

Ben: 42:23

Pretty much, because that's what I wanted to get it clearly didn't want to wait. It's okay, I might get another one. Oh, really? That's a fantastic gun. It's one of my favorite guns.

Gene: 42:34

All

Ben: 42:34

right. Huh. You know, might need it here shortly. So

Gene: 42:39

maybe, maybe, I don't know. I, I think that I guess as long as you're, as long as you're buying all your guns in the same caliber, then there's no reason not to buy more.

Ben: 42:52

I mean, I, I have a mix of calibers and I choose when to add new ones and so on. Mm

Gene: 42:58

hmm. But you, you like that 320 more than the the XDS? Yes.

Ben: 43:04

I think the 320 is a better gun. The XDS the XD platform and the XDS has its place. It's a great carry gun. This is not a carry gun unless it's open carry. I mean, this is a full size gun, dude. But what's cool about the 320 is it's very modular. So the actual firearm is the trigger mechanism. And I do like that. You can take that out. You can replace the frame. You can replace the slide. You can do whatever you want. I sent you an SBR. Yeah. Version of the three 20. That's pretty cool. That Pinhead, as you call him is running as a backpack gun. Pretty good. I think I'm the only one

Gene: 43:38

that calls him that. I've not heard anybody else refer to him as that, but I just think it's, yeah. And who

Ben: 43:41

we're talking about is Grand Thumbs, but Yeah. Grand thumb. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, the, the three 20 and a lot of what the, what SIG is doing is great. Mm-hmm. if you get the M 17, it has the safety mechanism there for a. Ambidextrous thumb safety. I think you can buy a version without that. You can take the thumb safety off of that gun too, and it'd be fine. So yeah, you can do it either way. I personally like the option. You don't have to use it. It's just there. Yeah. Yeah.

Gene: 44:15

Yeah. And I don't, you know, I don't think there's anything particularly bad about it. It's just, I have a negative experience with SIGINT and PASS that kind of tainted the brand for me a little bit. I'd, I'd be willing to try it again at some point, but I've not I got enough guns. I don't, I don't need. Yeah.

Ben: 44:32

Get you a 320. You'll like it. It's a very smooth operating gun.

Gene: 44:36

Yeah. But I don't know, man. I, I like just being standardized on my XDs.

Ben: 44:42

Speaking of, we're going to be doing something in November, theoretically, if you can ever pick a date. Yeah.

Gene: 44:49

I told you when I'm available, you pick a date.

Ben: 44:52

Okay. We can talk offline, but

Gene: 44:54

yeah. What is this theoretical thing we're going to be doing in November?

Ben: 44:58

Eh, I don't know, maybe going to a gun range. Going to a gun range. Doing some shooting.

Gene: 45:04

Yeah. Rather than just telling everybody when and where, if somebody lives in Texas, and it could be any of the three big cities because where we're going to go is going to be the same distance from all of them. Pretty much. But Yeah, if you're interested, drop a note to either one of us, either dude at namedben. com or jean at serjean. com, and then we can get you the infos and the details, but I don't want to just put them out there for the The Google's algorithms and everybody else to suck in. I mean,

Ben: 45:35

I guess Gene's inviting everybody. I was just going to talk about going to the gun range, but okay.

Gene: 45:41

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If somebody's interested in going to the gun range with us and, you know, making an in person donation to us would be nice too. But if you're interested in coming out and saying howdy, this would be a good time to do it.

Ben: 45:56

All righty. What what do we got going on as far as other than the Middle East.

Gene: 46:03

It's a good question. What

Ben: 46:03

do we have? Because, you know, COVID went away, apparently. I mean, Israel cured COVID.

Gene: 46:09

So that's good. I thought Russia cured COVID.

Ben: 46:13

Now, I will ask you this, did you did you Check out the issue with or not the issue, but did you watch Friday's Culture War that Tim hosts? No, I did not. You should watch that one. The guy they've got on there is definitely an interesting character. Mm hmm. He's... Liberal, but he is talking about proving Google's ability to swing elections and so on, like evidence that could be admissible in court sort of thing.

Gene: 46:48

Yeah, yeah, but wouldn't they have to actually. Show that somebody did not just somebody could have

Ben: 46:56

His point isn't to say Oh, there was voter fraud committed or something like that. His point is to say You know, hey, maybe Google shouldn't have this ability or power.

Gene: 47:07

Yeah I I may have seen the guy because there there's been a liberal guy that wrote a book on it a few years ago Maybe like a year and a half two years ago that Talked about coming with findings that effectively showed instances where Google changing the order of things or the preference had an impact on voting within districts for other elections. So maybe it's the same guy, maybe somebody else doing a similar thing, which is cool, if that's the case. Yeah,

Ben: 47:40

the last name is Epstein, so

Gene: 47:43

I don't remember what the, I'm horrible with names. I can't remember that guy's name. Yeah, I don't know. So there's, you, you like a few of these YouTube guys that do gun stuff. There's a few that we kind of like both of us, I think watching the regular bases like Brandon. Yeah. Herrera.

Ben: 48:01

I just think he's

Gene: 48:02

hilarious. You, you, I think definitely watch more grand thumb than I do. Ah,

Ben: 48:08

there's a couple of his videos that

Gene: 48:09

I like to have. I only occasionally, and I, I think I watch a lot more James Reeves than you do. Totally. Yeah. I like James. I think James is, he's got the right combination

Ben: 48:20

of humor. I think we both watch Demo Ranch though quite a bit. Yeah.

Gene: 48:24

Yeah. Demo Ranch. Oh, I will say I'm kinda getting bored of the same old, same old.'cause it, yeah, it is literally the same old, same old. You know, I think he's put out so many shows, like maybe too many, that he's gotten to a point where there's, he's done it all. There's not much more new stuff that he can do that he hasn't already done an episode on. It is kind of at that point and he's definitely the one of the best moneymakers off the Guntube. He has made some money. Yeah. I mean

Ben: 48:57

I mean, Brandon Herrera, his channel kind of exists because of Demo Ranch, you know?

Gene: 49:02

Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 49:03

But. Which by the way, he and I were at A& M at the same time. Were you really? Oh, that's cool. I, I, I, I had to go through and look it up. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Interesting. It's very interesting.

Gene: 49:16

Yeah, just look at what you, you could have achieved with your life by now. Yeah, thanks. I'm just saying. But, you know, the demo range, the demo range, you know, that Was his secondary channel his main channel was his veterinary channel because he's a veterinarian Mm hmm, and it was super depressing because it was all like watching videos of animals that have to be brought in for medical service Yeah, and then put down like not all of them were put down, but a good chunk of them

Ben: 49:48

were put on He killed them all

Gene: 49:51

He did not kill them all don't spread lies your misinformation goddammit, but But his hobby channel, which was the planking channel that he had, which, you know, eventually ended up being Demo Ranch, kinda was his, you know, his channel that he just did for fun. And boy, that one outpaced the veterinary one to a point where... A few years ago, I think he just completely stopped doing the veterinary channel. It was just like, yeah, no. And I, he probably stopped being a veterinarian is what happened. He was making so much money off of YouTube that he, he thought it wiser to invest more time in YouTube activities than being a doctor. But all those guys will credit FPS Russia. The guy they were watching before they got on YouTube and giving them that idea is like, wow, that is so cool. Just playing with exotic guns.

Ben: 50:50

That's so awesome. So are you going to announce your new channel? No,

Gene: 50:55

I'm not.

Ben: 50:55

No. Gene and I were having a conversation earlier this week. He, he owns a crazy Russian prepper. com or whatever. And I told him he should go out and do prepping gear review and go full FPS Russia on it.

Gene: 51:11

Yeah. Meaning do a fake Russian accent. Yes. Yes.

Ben: 51:14

Come on.

Gene: 51:15

You can do this. There you go. Exactly. Hell, you could do it

Ben: 51:19

In Mother Road for you.

Gene: 51:22

If somebody has an arsenal that is similar to F B S Russia I would be more than happy to be the front man. F PS Russia 2.0. Yeah. Doing, doing those videos. In the, the trouble is f p s Russia really could only do that shit when he had the access to the fun toys, which. He himself, at least initially, I mean, by the end of it, he had plenty, but initially he didn't really have anything super exotic or cool. You know, it was, and you know, you know why he's called FPS Russia as well, right?

Ben: 51:57

Frames per second, because he's playing some video game. I

Gene: 52:00

don't know. First person shooter, not frames per second. Because he was, yeah, he was a battlefield and call of duty player. And, and he did that same fake Russian accent in his gaming videos. That he, and then, you know, it just sort of transitioned. I'm not sure, I don't know the exact details of what the impetus was for creating the IRL channel, but I've seen his videos, his gaming videos that he did before that. And I can't remember Kyle's last name, but he also is a regular right now on like a talk show with four people. That I also can't remember the name of, but he's there on YouTube and he's like a regular guest on there. So the guy is still around. He still does stuff. He does not use the fake Russian accent. He does his normal speaking voice. On that show, he did several episodes where he related prison stories, and I'm sure everybody knows that he was in prison. Yeah, yeah. He's got some really, he is another guy, kind of like Zehan, who's a very good storyteller, like when he starts describing things. It's a great detail. Oh, yeah, yeah. Very, very good detail. He does, he talks about, like, all the shit, because he's coming into... You know, he's very much a white collar suburban kid, and he's coming into prison. Whoops! Accidental fall. And all he knows about prison is what Ben knows about prison, which is what he's seen on television. Hey, hey, hey. Huh. And it was a revelation for him to realize how much TV shows lie about prison. Like basically,

Ben: 53:42

in what ways do you think TV shows

Gene: 53:44

for one of the things that you did not want to be caught dead doing anything related to any kind of gay activities, because it was, it was the most straight place he'd ever been. Not only was nobody bending over and doing anything in the showers, but like people didn't even talk about that. Like all of a sudden people that may have been gay became straight. So prison, he said, that's, that's a very typical misnomer that you have from TV shows is, and especially TV shows like Oz, if you're old enough to remember that show which was the HBO show, one of their first big production

Ben: 54:23

shows. So I guess if you're in a federal penitentiary, sure. He was in the fed. Yeah. Okay. Sure. I think state prison county jail, very

Gene: 54:35

different. Nobody's going to serve long term in County Jail. County Jail is... I understand,

Ben: 54:41

you're, meh, up to a year,

Gene: 54:44

but yeah. But yeah, and, and the thing that, that everybody was afraid of was going into a, whatever the next higher level of detention you know, more dangerous criminal types were, where the environment was a lot more controlled, like he was, he was in,

Ben: 55:06

I think it would be far easier to be in a in a higher higher security level prison than a lower one.

Gene: 55:17

I would think that as well, having never been to one. However, he was describing that from the people that have been in a higher security prison, this is the biggest fear for them was going back in because. It, where he was, was basically the men's version of Orange is the New Black, meaning everybody had these little rooms with no doors and a couple of beds inside and you've got a little dresser with your stash of stuff. I mean, it was, it was still prison, but it was not like all you have is a bare floor and a bucket. Mhm. And the thing that most of these... Longer term criminals were afraid of is being in an environment where you can't just go and do shit where you're basically stuck in your cell other than the one hour per day of, you know, exercise activities. Everybody's biggest dread or fear was having a level of restriction be placed upon you that prevents you from just interacting with people. I, again, having never been to prison, my thought is... I think I could handle everything up to and including solitary pretty fucking well, because I just think there's less chance of, you know, getting sodomized when you're in solitary. But, apparently that's, that's not the typical reaction of people that actually make a career out of being in prison. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Anyway, if somebody wants to, you can track down his interviews or his show that he talked about. Just, you could do a search for FBS Russia, that'll come up but his real name's Kyle, Kyle something, don't recall. Other than Middle East, so we're gonna talk about what else? The I think the numbers came out from one of the websites that calculates inflation, showing that we are currently at 22 percent inflation. Yeah, that's, that's

Ben: 57:24

21 point something, but yes Oh,

Gene: 57:26

I'm sorry, I exaggerated it drastically.

Ben: 57:30

Yeah but my point is, I think everyone knows this. I think everybody's felt

Gene: 57:34

this right. But the federal government's official inflation rate is what it's like.

Ben: 57:38

No, three, three right now. I

Gene: 57:41

mean, they're not even trying like six, they could make some arguments for, but three. People lived during 3 percent inflation. We had that in the mid 2000s. People remember what that feels like. That is when, literally, nothing changes. Your insurance premium's the same price. Medical insurance, same price. Within reason, yes. Food, the same price. I mean, nothing changes. I mean,

Ben: 58:07

all, all you have to do is look at vehicles and, you know, I, I've purchased some vehicles, not super recently, but recently enough looking at the cost of goods because vehicles are a good indicator because there's lots of manufacturing that has to go into them.

Gene: 58:24

Manufacturing costs

Ben: 58:25

involved. Yep. Yeah. And from a large number of distributors from generally around the world. And when you look at auto prices and what they've done since, you know, 2017, 2016, 2013, it's pretty shocking.

Gene: 58:40

Oh, it's, it is, it is crazy. The trucks. Over 100, 000 make up a large percentage of the trucks sitting in

Ben: 58:50

the dealership right now. Oh, shit, man. Ford has quite a few F 150s that are in the 80, 000 range. And I'm not just talking Raptors either. The Lightnings are up there, and even some of the King Ranchers are up there now. Oh,

Gene: 59:03

King Ranch is 100, 000, dude. No, it is. I've got a buddy that just the model, but yeah. Yeah, and there's a lot of them for trucks all, all the three major truck brands, they all have trucks that are over a hundred thousand dollars right now and, and not which was the one model, the one model that, you know, had every spec that was a hundred grand in the past. Now, it's 20, 20 plus percent of all the trucks made are over 100, 000. Yeah.

Ben: 59:31

And by the way, a few years ago, this was a home.

Gene: 59:35

Yeah. More than a few, but yes.

Ben: 59:38

Early 2000s, you could buy a three bedroom house in a lot of the country for a hundred, 120 grand. And,

Gene: 59:44

and this I remember seeing is driving down the highway, you drive past like a mobile home sales site. And they always have huge signs and get yourself into a double wide for 105, 000, you know, something like that. So I passed one. Last week, drove by one, and was like, mobile homes starting at 2. 75. I'm like, holy shit! That for a mobile home? I mean, Christ! My home that was built in Minnesota that I had was about that price. Holy cow! Yep.

Ben: 1:00:23

I mean, but you know, what are you talking about? There's no inflation. No, no.

Gene: 1:00:28

No. And, and of course you look at the price of milk and eggs, you know, milk is six 50 a gallon or not again per, per a half gallon. So about 12 bucks a gallon for milk eggs again, like five to 7 per dozen eggs you buy a chicken or I used to be able to buy a chicken for about five bucks. And it'll lay you eggs. How much do you think you can get a chicken for? How much? What? Five bucks. Yeah, it used to be a, dude, I remember seeing all the time you can buy chicks that were already born and you can buy chicks for five

Ben: 1:01:05

bucks. Yeah, dude, I'm, I'm, I'm somewhat joking just because of inflation. Inflation has gone through the roof. This is not something that's ever going to come back down. It always does.

Gene: 1:01:18

Huh? It always does. I lived through the 70s inflation. It definitely comes back down. The problem is, we're on the wrong side of the slope. We're on the increasing, not decreasing side of that slope right now. Yeah, and

Ben: 1:01:31

I don't think it comes right down the way you do, but

Gene: 1:01:34

okay. I am not saying when, but some point it will. We may do what Italy did I don't know, back when they had the lira, if you're aware. Before they switched to the euro, Italy used the lira, and... Their inflation got so bad that the, the currency became millilira, which is thousand lira. So they effectively had gotten to a point where imagine that instead of a dollar note, you have a thousand dollar note. By the way, that is also a way for the government By devaluing your money to remove money from the from private ownership, from, you know, from people hoarding money effectively. Great. It destroys

Ben: 1:02:22

your 401k, destroys everything. Yeah. But, here's the reason why they won't do that. It also destroys your mortgage from a banking perspective. Mm hmm. Cause that doesn't get adjusted either. So if you start earning in million dollars, for example, or a thousand dollar increments, so you go from a dollar to a thousand being the smallest domination, you can pay off your house real quick. And that would that would destroy this economy very quickly. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, but if you want it now, I will say this. If you want to institute communism and take over the banking system and go to a full command control economy, it's a great way to do it.

Gene: 1:03:03

Yeah let's just go through that scenario though, is if you increase the or rather you decrease the value of the dollar, you get to that point where somebody can pay off their house. Some people will, but most people that I know that have gotten to the point where their house could be paid off, it isn't. Like whether they had a 15 or 30 year mortgage, when they hit that mark and you say, so congratulations, you paid off your house, they say, Oh no I took out a home equity loans five years ago or

Ben: 1:03:37

another mortgage or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

Gene: 1:03:39

Nobody and they're told by financial advisors, don't ever just sit on the house. That's paid off. You're not utilizing your assets. If you do that, you should always be using your assets.

Ben: 1:03:50

I mean, or you can protect your assets. There's two, two

Gene: 1:03:54

trains, but if you look at the, yes, but come on, what, what financial advisor is going to say, protect your assets. What they're going to say is, if you paid off your house, then the best thing you could do is take out a low interest loan on the house, a mortgage, low interest one, and then invest in the market. And if you're

Ben: 1:04:11

holding a reverse mortgage, what could possibly go wrong there? Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. By the way, did you see Ron DeSantis? I have not. Did you see that? I

Gene: 1:04:20

haven't seen anything from him. Are you

Ben: 1:04:22

ready to move on from inflation? Right. So Rhonda Santus apparently was wearing a high heels. Okay. He was wearing lifts, these cowboy boots that made him several inches taller.

Gene: 1:04:36

Come on, cowboy boots make everybody several

Ben: 1:04:38

inches taller. Dude, as someone who wears cowboy boots all the time, I'm very well aware. Thank you. But no, this was like, instead of the inch or whatever you get from the heel, it was like there was a multi inch lift inside. Okay. It's ridiculous. If you, if you Google it, you can find the

Gene: 1:04:55

pictures of the things to. Complain about that's so

Ben: 1:04:58

far down. No, it's just it's one of those things that it's it's absolutely destroying his political career I mean Ron DeSantis. I think his nuked his political career with this

Gene: 1:05:08

run. I don't think he is. I think that okay I really don't think so. I I think that there's certainly mistakes.

Ben: 1:05:16

Can we at least agree that the that the Republican primary is over.

Gene: 1:05:22

I think so Okay, so

Ben: 1:05:24

Trump's

Gene: 1:05:24

one Trump's always was going to be the guy on the ballot, but I don't think that that's a good move for the Republicans.

Ben: 1:05:34

Oh, I don't know, man. I can't agree that Biden won't be the candidate on the Democratic side. Most likely,

Gene: 1:05:42

like how you threw them most likely in there at the end when you realize that you could be wrong. I don't think he will be, but there is certainly a chance he is still will be. The way they would do it is they would just replace his vice president with somebody else. And then move him in forward and then, you know, then they've got full ability to guarantee you think,

Ben: 1:06:00

You think Kamala would step aside.

Gene: 1:06:02

Yes, I think I think they've demonstrated that she is her competence level. And her inability to be, what they want is somebody that can be controlled, doesn't have their own brain, but isn't completely, totally a tool. And she is

Ben: 1:06:21

a tool. You think they're going, you think they're going to give her a Supreme Court slot? Probably. That's a scary thought,

Gene: 1:06:29

man. Mm hmm. She's a, you know, constitutional lawyer, it is scary because the court right now already is completely split on the important issues like guns. It is now a pro Second Amendment court.

Ben: 1:06:41

No, by no means. In fact, the Supreme Court just had a ruling knocking down a stay on the ATF going through and enforcing the frames and receiver. Bullshit.

Gene: 1:06:53

Totally bullshit. And you can...

Ben: 1:06:55

Yes, you know, we can, we can we can regulate aluminum now.

Gene: 1:07:00

Blocks of aluminum, yes. Because any block of aluminum is a potential weapon. And I mean, not

Ben: 1:07:07

wrong,

Gene: 1:07:08

technically, yeah, so it is, it is definitely. A bad thing, but it makes sense because when, when the, the, the state starts to feel like it's losing control and losing power and losing status in the world, then it has to tighten its grip on its own populace. That's a very common maneuver that we've seen throughout history. And I'm sure your buddy Josh could bring up specific instances of it. But I think it's happened many times over the course of the cycles of empires is as the, as the victories get few and far between. And the defeats become greater, the the pressure is tighten the grip on the populace itself. Yeah. You know, what's FEMA

Ben: 1:08:03

up to? Oh man, FEMA's doing some interesting stuff.

Gene: 1:08:10

What's

Ben: 1:08:10

FEMA standing for? Federal Emergency Management, whatever.

Gene: 1:08:14

Yeah, whatever. And Of course the reason I asked you, because that's the only part I remember, is for Federal Emergency Management, whatever. But, there, people I think misunderstand where the emergency management means. They're thinking, oh, in case of hurricanes. No in case they need to create an emergency to manage you

Ben: 1:08:37

is so it's the federal emergency Management administration our agency. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, so you've you've really kind of gone all in on these books haven't you well, I'm on

Gene: 1:08:49

book five I told

Ben: 1:08:50

you that Wait till you get to the to the next, the Charlie's Requiem series, which is the big city story. No, but I, you're going to cost me. Book two is literally called Democide. Is it really? Yes, which by the way, for those who don't know, means the government's killing you. Mm hmm. Yeah, dude, just buy credits. It's okay. It's 12. Yeah.

Gene: 1:09:13

I don't I don't like buying credits. I like waiting until my credits are new.

Ben: 1:09:17

Right. But you can buy three credits at a time for 12 bucks a piece. It's not that bad. It's not that good

Gene: 1:09:23

either.

Ben: 1:09:24

Sure it is. No. You are getting hours of entertainment

Gene: 1:09:28

out of this. I am getting hours. No, no, no. Okay. Per hour cost is pretty good. It's not as cheap as video games, I'll tell you that. Then

Ben: 1:09:35

you've just gotten lucky lately with a couple of video games.

Gene: 1:09:38

When I, when I spend 600 hours playing a game that costs 80 bucks, that's a pretty good deal. Sure. Let's see, actually, how many hours did I, I don't even know, 463 hours. For 80 bucks. That's a great deal. Pretty good deal. Cyberpunk 389 hours for 50 bucks. Elite dangerous 3, 143 hours for 30. That's a hell of a deal.

Ben: 1:10:05

I haven't played. An hour's worth of video games in the last several years.

Gene: 1:10:10

Oh, I believe it. But you watched Plenty of Disney cartoons. Yeah,

Ben: 1:10:15

I have that. I have, which tried to watch Shapiro's New Bent Key Kids entertainment stuff. Oh, yeah, I heard about Which we, we both like Rob Schneider, but eh, he is Okay. As the dad on this new Oh, he is the dad. Okay. Yeah. He, he's a, he's the cartoon dad on this Bluey knockoff that Ben Key is doing. Rob Schneider, Rob Schneider,

Gene: 1:10:40

who was, I thought he was pretty funny in, in both his movies and Saturday Night Live, but he

Ben: 1:10:46

has done, both of his movies, you mean the, his movie career is atrocious,

Gene: 1:10:52

you, you're right, oh come on dude, he was funny. Deuce Bigelow, male Gigolo. Exactly, who doesn't want to watch that?

Ben: 1:11:00

I mean Rab Schneider is the animal. But he is part of that Dude, South Park made fun of him for a

Gene: 1:11:05

reason. He's part of that whole generation brat pack, along with

Ben: 1:11:11

who's the other guy? His stand up's better than a lot of things.

Gene: 1:11:14

It's I thought his TV show was really good. I enjoyed that. Which TV show? He had a TV show. Rob Schneider, something, I think. He's, what was the other guy's name that I'm thinking? The, the other little short guy from SNL. He was also, he had his own show from famous for not getting married. God, I can't remember his name, but anyway, they were all part of that same group of comedians. That we're saying that live at the same time that only Adam Sandler really kind of made big money.

Ben: 1:11:51

Adam Sandler did break free and make some money,

Gene: 1:11:53

man. Yeah, the rest of them were just kind of... I mean, they made enough... I

Ben: 1:11:57

mean, Rob Schneider's not poor, but...

Gene: 1:12:00

Oh, none of them are poor, but they're, they're, they're certainly not working... Actors, they don't need to go and work to survive, but they're not rich actors. You know, they, they might have all net worths in the low million range, maybe a million five million nine right around there. Now, Rob Schneider, I think is

Ben: 1:12:26

actually a little more. I mean, that's more than, you know, that's more than me,

Gene: 1:12:30

you're not an actor, are you? No. You're definitely not a YouTuber, because those are all way higher. But, Rob Schneider is I've liked on his actual show, and I can't remember, I guess I can Google it. What the name of his show was, I think they did two seasons and it was him and his wife. I thought it was hilarious because the character that he plays, it was kind of like Curb Your Enthusiasm, where he plays himself. And his character is somebody who is really kind of Scrooge McDucky, like he doesn't like spending money. He's always trying to find the cheaper way to do something. But at the same time, as one does. I mean, he's playing up the stereotype. He's a Jew. But his, the thing that made it fun is his wife really in her character. Cause she's I think she's Colombian or Mexican or something, but like a hot chick from the Latino culture. And then that those two personality types are really. Kind of at odds with each other. I'm just gonna Google it. Rob Schneider TV show.

Ben: 1:13:39

Why would they be at odds with each other, Doug Jean?

Gene: 1:13:42

Cause he's trying to find the, the cheapest way to get shit done, and shortcuts, and, you know, she wants to have the have nice things,

Ben: 1:13:52

basically. Is Rob Schneider actually Jewish? I don't know these things.

Gene: 1:13:58

He's a he's a Filipino Jew.

Ben: 1:14:02

Okay, I'm not even gonna ask how that's a thing, but okay.

Gene: 1:14:06

One of his parents is Filipino, the other one's Jewish, I'm not sure which one's which. It'd have to be his mother. He's not practicing, so it doesn't really matter. I mean, genetically, he could still be Jewish, even if it's the wrong parent. It only matters if you're practicing.

Ben: 1:14:20

I mean, that is, I mean, for that matter, Judaism is not only past, hold on, hold on, hold on. Yeah. Yes, it is. According to Jews. Yes, it is. And that goes from Ishmael to Isaac and all that sort of stuff, so Yes.

Gene: 1:14:33

Yes. It couldn't really go from Ishmael to Isaac if it's only through the mother. That's my

Ben: 1:14:38

mm-hmm. My point is Abraham's Tucsons. There you go. One Arab culture, one Jewish culture. Yeah. That's why it passes down through the mother.

Gene: 1:14:50

Yeah. I mean, that's not why, but it's...

Ben: 1:14:54

It is why. That's the genesis of why Judaism passes through the mother's side, is because the whole Hagar versus Sarah thing.

Gene: 1:15:02

It's not just Judaism, but including Judaism, the reason that it passed down through the mother was because the father was not knowable. You didn't know if your wife had been sleeping around, basically. You, you couldn't really, but you did know that the kid came out of that woman. Remember, these are tribal people. They move around and herd goats.

Ben: 1:15:24

You saw the the Hamas dropping supplies behind enemy lines thing I sent you, right?

Gene: 1:15:29

No, I didn't see that. What, what was that about?

Ben: 1:15:32

I sent it to you on signal. It was a, it was a goat on a oh, yes. You did. Para glider going

Gene: 1:15:37

across the dropping goats for supplies. Yeah. Yeah.

Ben: 1:15:43

I loved Robin Williams joke back in the day about the Taliban and, you know, a herd of goats. A k a concubines

Gene: 1:15:51

That's pretty bad. We

Ben: 1:15:53

successfully moved this pile of rubble from here to here.

Gene: 1:15:57

I think it was called Real Rob. Yeah, that's what it was called.

Ben: 1:16:00

God, you're still

Gene: 1:16:01

looking that up? No, I did look it up. I found it. It's, it's, it was called The Real Rob, and it had his actual wife in that, who's pretty, you know, pretty hot looking. Yeah. He got divorced. More than once.

Ben: 1:16:15

So you've been buying some gear lately.

Gene: 1:16:19

I bought some gear.

Ben: 1:16:20

Sure. Yeah. You've been changing out some of your stuff. And so have I, yeah, I

Gene: 1:16:25

need to keep updating certain things. I'm also going to start actually starting to use them because my problem is lately, this has not historically been the case, but lately is I've got a lot of stuff. I've just. Bought and never used. Yeah, we need

Ben: 1:16:40

to go on some camping trips. Mm hmm. Yeah, we really

Gene: 1:16:44

do It's I have fond memories of camping when I was younger But also I wonder how much of that is just tainted over time like in a positive direction but I used to camp a lot and I think when you camp a lot, you tend to just sort of a lot of those activities fall into the automatic category and it's no different than like staying in a hotel room. You just know what you're gonna need to do, and it's, and it's enjoyable and stuff. Whereas, if you haven't been camping for a while and all of a sudden the power gets turned off and you have to camp that could have some issues. It might suck. And not, not just suck, but it, it, it may actually you may run into things that... You just can't do or you can't figure out how to do or whatever you, you may be missing tools or you may be missing parts or you make assumptions that aren't true.

Ben: 1:17:46

Or you buy gear that you think will work great. And then when you actually get it out to the field, it

Gene: 1:17:52

sucks. It sucks. Or, or you buy like a a sleeping bag that, that doesn't fit you because you added a couple of belt

Ben: 1:18:00

sizes. You know, or like I'll use flashlights as a great example. So I've got a bunch of Olights. I like Olights. I think Olights are fine for most daily use. You know, the flashlight I carry in my pocket every day is an Olight. That said, in my, yes. Okay. And Olight makes a lot of really. Decent flashlights that make some good stuff that said if you look in my go bags and what I would say trust my life to Or really put stuff on the line like not just flashlight laying around the house But something that I know is gonna work. It's gonna be surefire or streamlight almost inevitably Yeah, because I know those are gonna work. I know those are gonna work a hundred percent of the time Yeah,

Gene: 1:18:42

surefire

Ben: 1:18:44

Yeah, yeah, sure. Fire and Streamlight, you know, they do great stuff. They always have. They're very rugged. They're very dependable batteries. I swap out. I've got some streamlights that I've picked up recently for various activities and you know, they come with these 18 650s that have a USB micro charging point port on them, which is great for the go bag because lots of opportunity. You don't have to carry a charger, but, Yeah, For the actual use, they suck because they're not a very high density battery and they don't have the, you know, I, I buy some good Sam, by the way, 18, six 50 store. com is fantastic resource for batteries get some good Samsung or LG or you know, Sanyo batteries, a decent manufacturer, and it'll change a lot of things. What store? 18, six 50 something you people

Gene: 1:19:34

can find it. 18, six 50 something. I've never heard of it.

Ben: 1:19:40

Yeah, and yeah, like an 18650. So that's a battery size. Oh, 18650.

Gene: 1:19:47

Oh, that's the name of the store. Jesus Christ.

Ben: 1:19:50

Yeah, 18650 is a battery size. Wow, okay. Yeah, and

Gene: 1:19:57

Yeah, so I've got, got some new solar panels coming in, I've got a few, I know, it's sad. Yeah,

Ben: 1:20:03

that book makes you spend money, doesn't it?

Gene: 1:20:05

It does, it does, it's, it's... Did you

Ben: 1:20:08

buy one of the stoves yet? Did you buy one of the camp stoves yet?

Gene: 1:20:11

I have too many camp stoves, dude.

Ben: 1:20:14

I've got, I've got a different one, but that kerosene stove is pretty cool, that he has. Yeah, the one they

Gene: 1:20:20

sent you? Yeah, the butterfly. So that, that, yeah, that's in, in the book. Just, the

Ben: 1:20:26

book we're talking the book, he Gene, you originally found annoying, but you've since... I think

Gene: 1:20:31

everybody finds annoying, if you look at reviews of the book.

Ben: 1:20:35

You've since come around that he, he posts some good

Gene: 1:20:38

gear. He's got like in his later books, he's not name dropping the way he is in the first book, the first book I told you he got rid of right in the first book to borderline annoying extent. He does the same thing that a lot of people didn't like about Tom Clancy, which is instead of saying he mounted the flashlight to his gun, he would say he mounted his surefire 1826 flashlight. To his Glock 29 with a customized and milled rail like, you know, the level of detail that most people don't give a shit about that's what this guy does as well. And I guarantee you, he was a fan of Clancy, 100 percent guarantee that if you asked him, so do you like Tom Clancy? He was like, Oh yeah, one of my favorite authors, but he he, because he does that, it's really easy just to type into Google what he just told you as a model number. For the thing he's using in the book and then have it come up with, Oh yeah, here it is. It's for

Ben: 1:21:39

sale here. And visualize it and go, Oh, that is a good idea.

Gene: 1:21:43

Now, but it also, have they

Ben: 1:21:45

gone to the river yet?

Gene: 1:21:47

Yeah, they've gone to the river and they're back already.

Ben: 1:21:50

Okay. I'm just asking. I don't, I've gone through all

Gene: 1:21:54

those books. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You read them all in one day, so I'm reading them a little bit slower, but it's like a book every other day or so. But they're some of this gear is not light gear, but you know, that was one, again, one of my complaints is when you, he rattles off all the shit he's got with him in the first book. And he's not, he's not like a in shape guy. He talks about that as well. He's 265 pounds. You throw on a 40 pound backpack on that and you're, you're over 300 pounds for a hike, a multi day hike. That's going to be difficult. In the best of circumstances, and when you're doing it with the stuff that's happening in the book, like the basic theme is. There's an EMP which you find out in the first few minutes of the book. So it's, I'm not really giving anything away, but there's an EMP that goes off, which effectively renders all high tech devices, unusable. Not even

Ben: 1:22:55

high tech devices, but all medium tech electronics, like your GPS is gone. But

Gene: 1:23:01

like your, your really old cars still work, your two cycle engines, things that don't require. Chips basically, they, they don't utilize integrated circuits.

Ben: 1:23:14

Those, you know, the odds so modern vehicles certainly could be susceptible to EMP for lots of reasons. There's lots of electronics, but if you take a late eighties, early nineties fuel injected vehicle, where all the computers for that fuel injection is under the hood in a steel cage, the odds of it still running are pretty high.

Gene: 1:23:37

Mm hmm. And if you. Get an EMP shield for your car, then the odds are going to be even better. What, what, what is this all God? Okay.

Ben: 1:23:50

Yeah. Let, let, let's see how they do.

Gene: 1:23:52

Oh, they're tested by the government. They're built to government specs.

Ben: 1:23:57

Yeah, Milspec, it's a fantastic thing. EMPs. Yeah. Everybody should be Milspec.

Gene: 1:24:02

If you go to EMPshield. com, and you can use a discount called Sir Gene, you will get a discount when you order your EMPshield. I think it's something everybody ought to be thinking about. And you get, you get a discount just by mentioning my name.

Ben: 1:24:17

If anyone wants to, yeah, if anyone wants to buy an EMP shield I've got a bridge to sell you and in Arizona.

Gene: 1:24:25

You might have bridges, but I have EMP shields and the just go to EMP shield. com. You can read all about it, see all the studies, government certifications. And they have, you know, they guarantee it too. It is totally, they have a, a they will pay you if it doesn't work.

Ben: 1:24:41

They have, of course, you know, how you're gonna collect at that point in time is

Gene: 1:24:45

you e m p shields for your vehicle, for your motorcycle starting at 3 89. All that's all I'm gonna say. Yeah,

Ben: 1:24:53

Most motorcycles would definitely still work, by the way, not the motor ones. And you, you sit there and say, steal a still a bicycle. Fuck, I'm still on a dirt bike.

Gene: 1:25:03

Yeah, the, the dirt bikes probably will, but, but the high-end bikes definitely will not.

Ben: 1:25:08

Who, who wants a cruiser in the middle of an apocalypse?

Gene: 1:25:11

I do. Fuck you, I'd totally want a cruiser in the middle of an apocalypse. That would be awesome. I miss my motorcycle, dude. I really, go buy another one. I... I don't want to. Go buy another one. First of all, they've more than doubled in price. What? Inflation? I know, right? Damn you, Joe Biden. But beyond that... So the reason I... Okay. So the reason I stopped riding a motorcycle... And I stopped riding in 2001... Is because my let's just call us a group of writers ended up having a guy die on one of the rides and both my mother and my ex wife

Ben: 1:25:56

was in a put a lot of pressure, a biker gang and

Gene: 1:26:00

it's not a gang, it was a club. Thank you. And I was actually the president. So I still have my jacket somewhere, but I kept that. Yeah, so having somebody die a few feet behind me was something that really put off the females. And so I, you know, I conceded effectively and, and agreed to stop writing. But I really enjoyed it. I, I did the iron butt one year. I don't know if people know what that is. Yeah, I don't know what that is. It's a thousand miles nonstop. Which Why would you do that? Because almost nobody does. It's the very few people ever

Ben: 1:26:43

do that. Yeah, I would imagine that people aren't that dumb.

Gene: 1:26:47

So you literally you just are calling all athletes stupid.

Ben: 1:26:51

No, no, not at all. I wouldn't consider a motorcycle rider an athlete though either.

Gene: 1:26:57

Believe me, when you're sitting on it for a thousand miles, you got, you're an athlete. You got an ass made out of steel. So I used to ride a lot. I did rides and across many states and like I said, I was actually headed up a motorcycle club chapter, but it was fun. I enjoyed it other than the death elements, but what I was going to say is part of the reason I, I don't think I would restart riding a motorcycle is because the greatest single factor in motorcycle fatalities if you look at the stats, yeah. The biggest correlation is with age of rider and the older you are disproportionately the higher the chance of fatalities becomes. It all has to do with reaction. It's all about reaction time. Because majority of motorcycle accidents are things that happen due to lack of noticing. Either something that somebody else did that was... Not correct and you didn't respond to it. You didn't react in time or the environment like a patch of ice, patch of water, patch of sand or traffic lights changing and you didn't notice or something. So reaction time is extremely important when you ride a motorcycle and for better or worse, it's just one of those things that diminishes with age. Same reason I don't play video games competitively. I just don't have the reaction time I used to. Yeah. What can I say? None of that matters as long as you go and pick up an EMP shield for your motorcycle.

Ben: 1:28:45

I have never been a motorcycle rider, man. Really haven't.

Gene: 1:28:49

Have you ever had a convertible? No. You

Ben: 1:28:52

ever ridden

Gene: 1:28:53

a horse? Yes, of course. Okay. Okay. There you go. It's gonna be similar to horse riding in terms of your, the positive aspects of both I think are the same. Yeah I

Ben: 1:29:04

think there's a dramatic difference between riding a horse and a motorcycle, but okay.

Gene: 1:29:09

There is, but the, the pleasure you get from one is gonna be similar to the one you get from the other. Yeah,

Ben: 1:29:16

I grew up with horses, and I've been kicked and bit and all sorts of stuff.

Gene: 1:29:21

Mm hmm, and most people have dropped their motorcycles.

Ben: 1:29:26

Buddy of mine, he He, he's one of those guys that he loves his motorcycles to an extreme degree. He did a lot of motocross and stupid stuff and he's broken. I don't even know how many bones in his body, but yeah, I remember when he got one of his first high end crotch rockets, which I'm trying to remember What what model it was, but it was something insane. It was like a, it was an insane displacement and everything. And he takes it out, we take it out to this County road and he's going to floor it and see how fast he can get. And his girlfriend standing by me and she doesn't know what he's going to do. And he goes past us at like almost 200 miles an hour. I mean, he was flying, you know, and she goes, damn it. I'm recording, you know, and I just know Ryan's about to break up with this chick. This is not going to end well, you know, sure enough. Yeah, there you go.

Gene: 1:30:24

Yeah, it's. An exhilarating feeling, although I will say that what I found to be... Yeah,

Ben: 1:30:31

going that fast with nothing around me, new, new thank you.

Gene: 1:30:34

No, that's not exhilarating to to me, some people that speed is exhilarating. But what I found my ideal speed is, it's about 45 miles an hour. It's fast enough to where things are moving quickly, but it's slow enough to where the sound of the wind and the pressure from the wind on you. Is not enough to really make much difference. So you can still look around and enjoy the scenery, but feel that wind you know, hitting you at a decent pace. Of course, good scenery also helps a lot. It's interesting. It's the exact same speed I found to be like the fastest reasonable fun speed on a jet ski. So when I, when I got my jet ski one of the things that I want to obviously do is to max it out and see just how fast I can go on that thing. Now keep in mind, on a motorcycle you're, you're wearing I mean you don't have to, but generally, I certainly did, I wore a helmet and other protective clothing. Jet ski, not really wearing much at all, but they both go pretty fucking fast. I think mine topped out at 64 miles an hour and I know you can buy them now for over 70 miles an hour, which is a insane, what I found is anything over about 40 miles an hour in the jet ski stopped being fun and started becoming, cause you're, you're having to just, you know, do more corrective and balancing with your feet. And you have to pay attention a lot more because things are zipping past you a lot faster. You have to make sure you don't hit something accidentally, like a log. That's just a couple inches underwater. It's yeah. And like when we had the big rain. Like six, seven years ago here in Austin, whatever it was now that refilled lake Travis and all the other lakes had a ton of flooding. And so they shut the lake down because of the flooding, because there's just tons of debris in there. I still took out my jet ski out there to go check it out. That was awesome. Yeah. I felt like Mad Max on jet skis, you know, so you've got literally. You have whole docks floating down in the lake and that will down the river. It's really a river with boats inside. You had large boats that were just floating down the river. You had all kinds of shit and also, you know, logs and things like that. I actually shot some video. I have somewhere of all the debris and I don't mean just you know, crappy debris, I mean, like expensive shit floating down the river. It was awesome. Mm hmm. Fun times. I enjoy a certain level of speed, but I don't, I don't need to go 200 miles an hour.

Ben: 1:33:26

I have no objection to going fast, but I just want to do it in a vehicle that's contained personally. Mm hmm. Hey speaking of dangerous moves did you see Victoria's Secret is no longer doing their woke campaign? They're actually going back to hot

Gene: 1:33:40

women. I don't know if that's gonna be enough for them to I think they, they've lost too much of their reputation. And look, there's nothing wrong with making clothes for people that are not size zero, but there is something wrong with trying to pretend that people that are size 16 are size zero because they're not. Or that are men. Or, yes, or women that are men. Exactly. So I think much like a lot of these companies, Victoria's Secret somehow got it into its head that, that whatever market share they have is a permanent number and now that they've got that level of market share, now they can do things that will change the world for the better as far as they're concerned. Without any repercussions. And I think a lot of these companies eventually realized that. You know, they have a bit, a a bud light moment where they realize Oh, so you mean we were not going to still be number one if we do stupid shit. Oh, that sucks. Cause they, they clearly don't think that anything is going to change for the worse if they start becoming very political and divisive.

Ben: 1:34:57

I'm just glad they went back to you know, attractive women.

Gene: 1:35:01

Yeah, but I don't think it'll ever get back to that same

Ben: 1:35:03

level I think they're no I think they've you know Victoria's Secret and the Victoria's Secret models and everything else had almost a Playboy Playmate esque Reputation about them right that they

Gene: 1:35:15

were I think it was literally the same thing. Yeah, they were

Ben: 1:35:18

not You know, nude models, they were close, but not quite. So I think there is a differentiation. One is considered porn, one's considered advertising. So I think there's a difference

Gene: 1:35:28

there. There is a difference, but it's, it's virtually undistinguishable. I mean, Playboy, if you look at Playboy, I, most of the models were not nude. They were still wearing panties. Playboy had a very small number of women who were completely nude in that magazine. That was not, it wasn't Penthouse. I understand. But it, my, my point was merely more about the term, the angel term was synonymous with the Playboy Bunny that Playboy created. It was

Ben: 1:36:02

a, we're on the same page there. My, my point is I think they've destroyed that reputation.

Gene: 1:36:07

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree. I agree. You know, I remember getting the the God, I'm blanking on the name, what, what company we Victoria secret catalog. Yeah. I remember getting those. Hell yeah.

Ben: 1:36:19

Gene made damn sure he was on that list.

Gene: 1:36:22

How well yeah, I think There's a lot of men that used to be on that list back in the day But I also used to get Playboys too And I had to I kept all of them for a long time thinking there might be some value there But when I moved to Austin on that move I got rid of all my books and I checked the value of the Playboys and I had plenty that were still sealed in there Plastic and they were just not worth anything. There's so many people that had them That there's nothing unique there. There's no increase in value over time or not. Not yet. Maybe 30 years from now. That'll be worth something. So I ended up just throwing them all away. That's sad. I'm sure somebody's listening going, no, why would you do that? Yeah,

Ben: 1:37:08

my mom when we cleaned out my grandfather's house, threw away a lot of stuff that was definitely could have been valuable.

Gene: 1:37:16

I've noticed I've become a lot less

Ben: 1:37:18

sentimental over time. You've to do

Gene: 1:37:19

that. Throw shit away? Yeah, women always throw shit away. They throw men's shit away. They don't throw away shit they think is going to be useful. Yeah. That's for sure. I, I was going to say, I've noticed about myself that I've actually become less sentimental over time. I used to be more sentimental when I was younger. I think, generally, I think most people do the opposite, or at least I thought most people do the opposite, that as they become older, they start being more sentimental. And what I mean by sentimental is just keeping shit for the memories that it had, rather than for its utility. I think I've become more utilitarian. I care less about things for what I use them for, for what memories they represent. And I care more about, is it actually useful? Can I use it now? I guess the one example I just mentioned in this show is my, I still have my motorcycle jacket. That's clearly of zero utility and 100 percent sentimental value. I mean,

Ben: 1:38:22

I'm assuming it's a leather jacket and leather

Gene: 1:38:24

jacket with a club logo on the back. Yeah.

Ben: 1:38:27

So a good leather jacket is always of good utility,

Gene: 1:38:30

dude. Yes. I'm sorry, but I was a hundred pounds later when I wore it. Oh I'll take it of zero utility. You want to wear a jacket with my name on it? Okay. I don't

Ben: 1:38:41

know. I just, I can take, I always take the patches off. I mean, I'm just saying it

Gene: 1:38:45

probably probably would. No, I know it would fit. You totally would. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm at

Ben: 1:38:50

least a hundred pounds lighter than

Gene: 1:38:52

you. Oh, you're definitely a hundred pounds lighter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it, it's a but that is one of very few things I tend to go through and actually throw away a lot more stuff that has no actual utility value and including like electronics, which I used to keep everything. Dude, I remember when I, when I moved back, this would have been in 2000. Oh boy. What would it be? Maybe 2004 or something. I remember throwing away a full like large, like a foot by a foot and a half by a foot and a half size box of nothing but brand new SCSI cables.

Ben: 1:39:32

Yeah, I've definitely gone through and cleaned out a lot of stuff. Like I, I had some old raid controllers. I had some SCSI controllers still in, you know, my, I've got some drawers that are in my office closet that's full of equipment and I've gone through and cleaned out and I, you know, like I told you, I've, I keep hard drives until I can go through and remove some of the stuff from them. And so I had a huge box of, you know, of drives and stuff that I went through and pulled the data off of that I still could and, you know, killed them.

Gene: 1:40:04

Yeah, it's and then now what I need to do is go through and take all of my cables that were for the iPhone that had the lightning connector and then get rid of all those. Cause that's thankfully, finally Apple did a miraculous thing and unified the connector to this new thing called USB C you may have heard of. Yeah.

Ben: 1:40:25

That's been around for a little while.

Gene: 1:40:27

What do you mean? It's the first year it's on the phone. It's not, it's just brand new. What are you talking about? Yeah. What has it been out like 10 years? Interesting. Probably around 10. It's been around for a while. Yeah. So I, I need to go through and get, I'll bet you, I probably have 20 to 30 of those cables of, of connectors, not just cables, but you know, things that were meant for the phone that added like mini controllers and all kinds of stupid crap.

Ben: 1:40:56

Probably some things that can, I bet you even had one that converted from lightning to USBC.

Gene: 1:41:01

Oh, I have plenty of those. I have probably three or four of those. Yeah. So lots and lots of stuff that no longer is lots

Ben: 1:41:10

and lots of wasted money.

Gene: 1:41:12

I but it wasn't necessarily wasted. It was just a limited use function. So you, you have a. It's kind of like a phone, right? It's only good for two years. Yeah. So you're, you're buying it with the assumption that you have to amortize it over two years. It's not going to be... It's, you're not buying something you're going to buy once and have forever. It's not like buying a firearm.

Ben: 1:41:36

Yeah, I'm going to have to change my lightning address at GetAlbee. Because right now it's PurpleSnowflake and then some numbers. I don't know why they thought that'd be a good random thing to, you know, do. Probably because

Gene: 1:41:48

there isn't, there, nobody else would have one. Mm hmm. With that name. Yeah, you could change it. And mine is just SirGene on there, which is very easy. So yeah, just another reminder, if you're, if you're listening on a podcasting 2. 0 app that allows you to have.

Ben: 1:42:06

All right. So mine is now updated to dude named Ben at get Albie. Very good. So there you go. I'll

Gene: 1:42:13

make it easy. Do some testing on that. Then do turn that on and, and send us a boost and, but a small one. Don't, don't send any real money. Just do something, something fairly small, just so we can see if there's traffic. And if there isn't, then you'll hear about it in the next episode where I'll be saying, okay, I found the problem and fix it. But for now I think it should be working. But I don't know if it is. Got anything else, Ben?

Ben: 1:42:42

No, man I'm looking forward to talking about whether or not this flying with gear and how that's going to go. So I'm, like I said, I'm taking my carry pistol and some boots and some minimal gear. Basically, my entire idea is I'm going to fly carry on the way I always do for work, but I'm going to have a checked bag that has some stuff in it. That, you know, I'm gonna have a very good inventory of and if the airline loses it, they can replace it.

Gene: 1:43:09

Yeah, and I, I will say. Not that it's going to affect your flight, but I will say just from my own personal experience, I've, I've flown with firearms well over a hundred times and not once did I lose

Ben: 1:43:21

anything. Yeah, I never have. So anytime I've been going to go hunt or do anything, it's always been a drive for me. There's just never been an occasion where I've flown. So this is going to be a new one. I actually bought a new Pelican case to put inside another. Suitcase for, you know, the firearm and all that. Yeah that's

Gene: 1:43:41

overkill, but okay, why is that overkill? Because Pelican cases tend to be on the thick side. I like Pelican though. I did too. I've got a, a bunch of them, but.

Ben: 1:43:55

It's one of those things that if I ever just want to, let's say I don't want to take this suitcase that I'm going to be dedicating to this gear or whatever. You know, I mean, I could, I could take one of my gun cases that guns came in and lock it, but. You know, then you're kind of questionable on if you get an asshole on the regulations, cause can you pry it open? Things like that. Yeah. Thing. Yeah. Anyway. So this first trip I'm, I'm going I'm like, I'm using TSA locks. I don't plan on using TSA locks going forward, but you know, I want to get through this, see how this goes and then I'll start experimenting more.

Gene: 1:44:29

And hopefully everything will go fine and you'll have your positive experience

Ben: 1:44:35

on that. Yeah, as long as I don't have to pick up luggage and deplane in Illinois, I'll be fine, even though I have a connection there.

Gene: 1:44:42

Oh, you have a connection there. That could be interesting. Yeah, that's not a good thing. Wait, you have a connection in Illinois? Yep, O'Hare. Oh my god, that's kind of a weird dogleg trip.

Ben: 1:44:57

It's somewhat on purpose. I'm, I'm trying to get a few more segments in to it's a

Gene: 1:45:04

status quo.

Ben: 1:45:05

I did make titanium. Hey, I did make titanium.

Gene: 1:45:09

Oh, for the hotel? Good, good deal. Just do that a few more years and you're good to go.

Ben: 1:45:14

Yeah, actually I will be within like three nights of making ambassadors when it's all said and done. Really?

Gene: 1:45:21

Why don't you get those three nights scheduled? You got, you got three months.

Ben: 1:45:24

Cause I don't think I'll make the dollar spend as part of it though. Oh, okay. Got it. I mean, if I, if I'm not going to make the dollar spend,

Gene: 1:45:31

then it doesn't really matter. So my yeah, my other buddy I've been telling you about that's also that he'd just made lifetime platinum this year. He, I think he's got ambassador right now, right in the last time we chatted, he was trying to figure out what he needed to do to get, what is that called? The, like the top tier of the airline thing, the

Ben: 1:45:55

one K for United higher than that. No, one

Gene: 1:45:59

K is the top. No, it just means you haven't traveled enough. If you think one case. It's called, what is it called? I don't remember off the top of my head what it was called. But there's basically, all the airlines have these. There's an invite only tier that's not really published and it's based more on your money spent than on your miles. There's a minimum mileage component, but it's not hard to hit. But it's based on, I think you have to spend For United, I think it's 45, 000 a year. I think American was a little bit cheaper. It was like 35, 000 a year. Which,

Ben: 1:46:40

you know, I would already be ambassador if I hadn't stayed at the Taj in Dubai, had I stayed at a Marriott property in Dubai, I would totally already be an ambassador.

Gene: 1:46:52

See, there you go. Why would you not stay at a Marriott property? I only stayed at Marriott. Because I didn't

Ben: 1:46:57

book the trip.

Gene: 1:46:59

Yeah, but you

Ben: 1:47:00

yeah, fair enough. I mean, they put me up at the Taj, which is a damn nice hotel, but,

Gene: 1:47:05

you know, hey. Right, right, right. Yeah, I mean, no complaints on the hotel there, but... Hopefully, doing more of these types of trips, you'll be able to control that a little more. Whether you're booking or somebody else is booking, you can at least tell him where you want to go. So what he's doing, and since he doesn't listen to the show, he's not going to know I'm talking about him. Talking out of turn. I know, right? So he's got a trip coming up to Japan. And his company doesn't have a good policy of booking you in business class for these long trips. That sucks. It totally sucks. They're fine with booking last minute, right? But they're, and so they're paying full fare coach. But not

Ben: 1:47:53

ahead of time. You could, which

Gene: 1:47:54

is pretty damn close. Yeah, exactly. So he's doing the upgrading to business himself. So he's basically, it's so crazy, but he's not the only person. So he's basically trying to find an expensive. Coach route so that he can then call the airline and get it re booked as a cheaper, more direct business route. I know. That's hilarious. It is so stupid that you got to jump through all these hoops and, and he, when he was traveling in the Middle, Middle East here just a few months ago, he kind of had to do the same thing. And it's God damn, man. It's, it's, it sucks that you have to jump through hoops. And he spent, I think he spent 5, 000 of his own money on the upgrade for the airfare. So I would be, I still probably would do it as well, but I, I would really bitch about it a lot. I would make sure that I'm not just doing it casually. I would make sure that my boss, everybody else knows that I'm spending the money to do this. And that you know, if they see a value in me physically being that far away, then part of that value has to be a flight in business class or better.

Ben: 1:49:10

I mean, in, you know, the, there are policies and everything, but anything over 10 hours, you just gotta, that, that's, you can't do.

Gene: 1:49:18

Yeah. The companies I've worked for in the past, it was typically any flight over eight hours is going to be automatically business.

Ben: 1:49:25

Yeah, and you know our policy is similar to that and it's it's you know If you're in business or better and you if you have a lay flat seat, that's the key Yeah If you have a laid flat seat and you've got a long flight It makes a long flight really easy because then you can actually sleep

Gene: 1:49:42

Exactly. Like I don't understand how people fly that don't have showers on the airlines. Like how barbaric is that?

Ben: 1:49:50

Okay. And on that note, Gene, we'll we'll see you next week. All right.

Gene: 1:49:55

Sounds good,

Ben: 1:49:56

Vin. We'll see you next week. Assuming I don't get arrested in Illinois,

Gene: 1:49:58

you know. I you know, that's a good question. Maybe I'll have Darren come and do the show if you do. No,

Ben: 1:50:04

if I get picked up at O'Hare, Darren can come bail me out, okay? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Gene: 1:50:08

Yeah, that's right. If you end up getting stuck in the Chicago area, he's real close. You can. Hey, we're doing an impromptu meeting in Chicago land.

Ben: 1:50:17

Yeah. And by the way, a few hundred dollars. Yes.

Gene: 1:50:21

Yeah. I wonder I'll bet you the airport. I bet your hair has their own jail in there. Oh, I guarantee it. Yeah. That's a big enough airport. Yeah. Every

Ben: 1:50:30

major airport's

Gene: 1:50:31

going to have that. Yeah. And then probably run by FEMA. TSA. That's all part of the same group. Oh, dude.

Ben: 1:50:39

TSA agents.

Gene: 1:50:41

Got a lot of them. Yeah. All right. All right, man. We will I guess, talk next week. Yep.

Ben: 1:50:47

See you, Gene.